1. Comment on Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill returning, "I have only seen evidence for one of them having signed. I am not joining the skeptics suggesting they are not all back, but I can only tell you what I know. It would not surprise me if they did not all come back for EPISODE VII but maybe came back at varying points in the new trilogy. The script will determine their status." 2. A location that has been mentioned many times before but never seen will be in the movie, ""One small hint: Star Wars The Old Republic has added a planet that has long been mentioned but never seen on film." Speculation says it is the Sith home planet of Korriban. 3. Casting insight, "Just this past two weeks I have heard the names of Emmanuelle Chriqui, Alexis Dziena and Taissa Farmiga all linked with roles - all exceptionally talented actresses. Whether any of them are cast is still unknown, but if you consider the quality of the people they are looking at - you can see the quality of the effort."

Also, a source at Pinewood Studios, where the movie will be filmed , said, "A full-scale 1:1 Millennium Falcon has been built as well as the interiors of the ship for filming. The Falcon is done - inside and out. The sets were built off-site, ready to move when Lucasfilm/Bad Robot were ready to move into Pinewood."

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG---Air New Zealand released a photo of its Boeing 777 jetliner with the Dragon Smaug from the movie on the fuselage.

THE MIST---10-part miniseries underway based on the 2007 movie which was based on the Stephen King novella. Frank Darabont returns as a co-producer with Dimension Films. The original movie starred Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden and Laurie Holden. Dimension Films, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez are developing a tv series based on SIN CITY.

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION---Michael Bay commented on the latest movie in the series, "I wanted the first Transformers to be very suburban and less cool. This is a much more cinematic one. I focused on keeping this one slick. There won't be any goofiness in this one. We went a bit too goofy [on the last one]. It feels like a new chapter, this movie. But it's not a reboot. This movie lives in the history of the Transformers movies, and this one starts three years after the last..." * * * * * * * * THE WALKING DEAD---question-and-answer session with showrunner Scott Gimple on the mid-season finale. Also, Season 4 resumes on February 9.

Q: Was it always planned that the Governor would be killed off in Season 4? A: "This season was my approach from the start and the structure that I had in mind. It did have the Governor's fate sealed in this episode."

Q: Did you originally plan on using a comic book scene and the Governor's line "Kill them all." in the scene about the attack on the prison? A: "Oh yeah. The tank was something amazing from the comic that I wanted to see and knew others wanted to see. It meant a lot when I read it in the comic...When the Governor drives that tank in, it's different than it was in the comic; it's very much closing up this guy's story. When he goes into the prison in this episode, it's an incredibly a self-destructive act. He's lost Megan, Lilly has seen him kill Hershel. Why does he drive that tank into the prison? Rick says, "Without the fences, the place is worthless." But the Governor has lost everything; so when he says that iconic line from comic -- "Kill them all!" -- he's just a force of destruction at that point. Everything he wanted the prison to be is over. And that very much fit into the story we were telling.

Q: Why did you decide to kill off Hershel? A: "From a story standpoint, they lost the prison, they lost their home, civilization and Hershel was the embodiment of a civilized and humanistic approach...Hershel was the driving force beyond -- Carl and Judith -- to Rick's change when we join him at the beginning of the season. Everything he tried to achieve had been taken away from him over the first five episodes, and now he's lost the person who walked him through that. It's a very important part of the story that Hershel died; it isn't just shock death. We're going to see now with all these things taken away from Rick if he can come back from this. Moving into the next season and a half, the loss of Hershel will be felt and will be this driving element in Rick's character."

Q: Is baby Judith really dead? A: "There are a lot of walkers around there as well. It did not look good, and I don't want to say one way or another but what you see tells a story."

Q: Now that the group was forced out of the prison, where do they go now? A: "I can't say. If you know the comic, there are a lot of differences from the comic that we do and a lot of differences that we have to do. There's going to be a lot of familiar stuff, brand-new stuff and remixed stuff. There are some things where you will totally know them and hopefully be expecting them, and then there will be stuff that's brand-new...Comic fans once again will absolutely see a lot of iconic moments."

Q: Are the mysterious cabin and the dead military men who were rapists and murderers going to be in future episodes? A: "That cabin in and of itself will not be seen again. That's part of the Governor's story, and that story is over."

Q: Is Carol returning after being banished? A: "She's going to appear sooner or later, but I can't say much. There is a bit of time from when we saw Merle on the roof in Atlanta and when he rejoined the story. It could be a bit but could be a long bit, but she will return at some point. We might have flying cars at that point, but she will return."

Q: Will the fans find out who was feeding the rats? A: "We will absolutely find out more about the rats and the person who seemed to dissect that rabbit that Tyreese found in the tombs before the Governor showed up."

The Mist as a series with Darabont participating? Sounds good to me. For adults, I hope/imagine. It has some potential.

No-one does King like Darabont, so I'll leave it to his expert judgement...but I wonder where he is going with this? Other tales from within the Mist? Or a sequel series with another experiment? Or something completely different? Interesting...

I believe Jackson & co. want to boost the presence of female characters in these stories, which is understandable.

I'm kind of agog no one has yet commented on the statement about the Millennium Falcon having been rebuilt for the new Star Wars. I find myself being somewhat apprehensive about the new movies, but I have to say it excites me to read things like that.

It's a three-hour-ish movie based on approximately 100 pages of a 300 page book. The section about the Wood Elves, if I remember correctly, only mentions the Elf king and no other specific characters. Would be a pretty dry hour of the movie to not put any names or faces to other elves, so I'm glad we get Tauriel, and to a lesser extent I'm glad we get Legolas.

I'm beyond caring whether Jackson makes changes to Tolkien's source info for his movies, and it's a good thing, too - otherwise my head would have exploded somewhere around eight minutes into FOTR when Frodo was twenty years old, or half an hour in when there was no Tom Bombadil. The movies have to stand on their own as movies, IMO, first and foremost.

What I do want is for this to be a really good movie; something that I don't feel was accomplished in An Unexpected Journey, but not due to embellishments on the source material.

It's a three-hour-ish movie based on approximately 100 pages of a 300 page book. The section about the Wood Elves, if I remember correctly, only mentions the Elf king and no other specific characters. Would be a pretty dry hour of the movie to not put any names or faces to other elves, so I'm glad we get Tauriel, and to a lesser extent I'm glad we get Legolas.

It's going to be a three hour bore fest anyways even with the inclusion of Middle Earths Katniss.